The proposed study shall attempt to test a series of hypotheses ascertaining the effect of social support systems on the relationship between stressful life events and illness. Follow-up on the available empirical evidence that stressful life events are found to affect various mental and physical illnesses, we shall investigate, with a representative sample from a Tri-City area of upper New York State, the nature and conditions under which social support serves to buffer the effect of stressful life events on illness. Cluster analyses will be performed for the stressful life events (the modified Holmes-Rahe scale), as well as social support scales (the Kaplan scale and the Medalie-Goldbourt scale) so that specifications can be made as to the conditions under which each of the hypotheses holds true. Taken into account in the analyses are the history of illness as well as other socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The confirmation of the mediating effect of social support would theoretically elaborate our understanding of the social dynamics of illness and pragmatically lend credence to the conceptualization that mobilization and utilization of social support systems be considered as a component in community-based health systems. The proposed study is designed in such as way as to allow follow-up studies with the same respondents for the gathering of longitudinal data and discerning definitively the causal relationships among the stressful life events, social support and illness in the projected next phase of our work.